


Almost Famous: A Rock Star's Take

by Loverlylo



Category: Rock of Ages (2012)
Genre: F/M, Interview Fic, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:27:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26928100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loverlylo/pseuds/Loverlylo
Summary: Stacee Jaxx has some opinions on the new film, Almost Famous. Mostly, about Penny Lane and how much Constance Sack isn't her.
Relationships: Stacee Jaxx/Constance Sack
Kudos: 8





	Almost Famous: A Rock Star's Take

Almost Famous: A Rock Star’s Take

_ While it may not have caught on in the mainstream, anyone with any interest in music, particularly rock, will have spent the last few months thinking about one film and one film only:  _ Almost Famous.  _ Written and directed by Cameron Crowe, inspired by his early days as a rock critic at this very magazine, it serves as a portal into the world of 70’s rock stardom _ .  _ Moreover, multiple musicians have commented on the accuracy of several antics shown in the film. Gregg Allman in particular has confirmed that several scenes, such as the pool scene, are taken from Crowe’s time with the Allman Brothers. Other musicians have spoken out against it. One in particular has made his distaste known, and it’s easily the last person anyone would guess.  _

_ I watch my guest pour himself a measure of scotch and settle into the sofa, his eyes unsettlingly sharp as he takes a sip, as if evaluating if I’m worthy to interview Stacee Jaxx. I suspect the answer is “no”. With a deep breath, I start. _

**_You don’t like_ ** **Almost Famous** **_. To the extent that you reached out to us and set this interview up specifically to detail its failings from the perspective of someone who’s lived the life it portrays. I cannot imagine hating a movie that much. So, Mr. Jaxx, why?_ **

_ Please, call me Stacee _ **_._ ** _ And I want to be clear: As a film,  _ Almost Famous  _ is top-notch. It’s a love letter to the art I’ve devoted my life to. And that spark, that spirit of rock music is perfect. How hard it is to get it, to keep it. How it floats past, and you’re so desperate to pin it down that you’ll stay up all night just to get one line right. _

**_Then why--_ **

_ Penny Lane. _

_ He stops here, as if expecting me to immediately understand. I don’t, and my failure to do so is met with a resigned sigh and more scotch.  _

_ I loathe that film because of Penny Lane. Not the character, or the actress. She’s what makes that film work. I hate how Crowe treats her like the embodiment of that rock spirit. That groupies, sorry--  _ **_he gives a derisive scoff here_ ** _ \-- “band aids” are the glue to rock as a whole, and without it, it died. And that’s bullshit. _

**_That’s an interesting sentence coming from you, given how you spent the mid-80s._ **

_ That’s why I’m saying that. That fucking mythical world Penny creates, glamour and mystique and not real. It’s toxic. The years I spent living that life with my own Penny Lanes, those are the years where my music sounds like shit. Because how do you write music that grips the heart if you’re always too drunk to strum? How do you write lyrics that make someone stop in their tracks if you’re always high as a kite? How do you write a classic that will last for a decade if everyone around you pushes you to live in a fantasy? _

**_So then what is the embodiment of rock? Where does a musician turn to find inspiration if not to a Penny Lane?_ **

_ You turn to the music. Now, a person may give you a kernel of an idea. A lyric, a riff, a story. But they can’t give you a whole song. You have to dig that out yourself. If you get truly stuck, you turn to your records. Buddy Holly, The Who, NWA or The Jam. But a person cannot be what Crowe thinks Penny is. When you start turning to your entourage for that feeling, you’re not a musician anymore. You’re just someone who desperately needs to be important. But all that just made me dislike  _ Almost Famous _. _

**_Then what made you hate it, if not the thing you hate most about it._ **

_ The way Crowe talked about Connie. _

**_You mean the interview last month?_ **

**_[Constance Sack, Jaxx’s wife, was mentioned by Crowe in an interview with Rolling Stone as one of the real-life Penny Lanes. He said that “One person I kept turning back to for Penny was Constance Jaxx*. She wrote for Rolling Stone a decade after the film was set, and you’d assume she’d have played more an inspiration for William, but her passionate love affair with Stacee Jaxx as he climbed out of addiction became a key component to Penny. She was his rock, his muse, his fan. She was everything to Stacee in the way Penny tries to be for Russell.”]_ **

_ You know, sometimes I regret getting with Connie. Not for me, she’s the best thing that ever happened to me and the mother places two through four. But I hate how it makes people see her. Without me, she’d be Constance Sack, legend of music journalism. She’d be remembered for breaking the glass ceiling and exposing corruption and giving up-and-comers a chance. And she still is all those things. But people treat her like Constance Sack, the woman who saved Stacee Jaxx. Like the only important thing she did was pull my head out of the bottle. _

**_So you disagree with Crowe’s assessment of her as “fundamental to the restoration of Arsenal to it’s true glory?”_ **

_ Oh, she was very fundamental, but because she was the Anti-Penny. Connie yanked me out of that fantasy and forced me back to reality. She pointed out how our work had deteriorated. She made me face the theft of profits by our manager. She made me face my sellout music and then left me to do the work. And while we did start dating when Arsenal was rebuilding, she wasn’t floating around, making me feel good. She was working, writing her first Pulitzer-winning feature**. And while she inspired a few songs-- I wrote “I Want To Know What Love Is” right after we first met-- I’d never lean on her the way Stillwater does Penny. That’s honestly the thing that pisses me off most; how Crowe makes treating people like that an okay thing to do. _

**_Treating people like what?_ **

_ Like they exist to serve you. Like being a musician is a permit to just take and take and take from everyone around you because you’re a rock god and they’re lucky to breathe the same air as you. Like the women who love you are nothing more than vessels for your greatness and ego. They traded her for shitty beer and she’s fine with that because Penny spends the whole film as nothing more than a magic mirror, showing the band what they need. I was so fucking glad when she got on that plane. _

**_You’re saying that doesn't happen in rock?_ **

_ I’m saying it shouldn’t. Women, and it’s always women, who flock to musicians as fans, as groupies, as band aids; they’re people with their own lives, and they need to be treated like it. Not just by musicians, but the world at large. _

**_What do you mean?_ **

_ I hope to god that I’m dead before the inevitable Stacee Jaxx biopic comes out, I really do. Because I know what they’ll do to Connie. I’ll be burned out on fame, lonely at the top, drunk off my ass, which is all accurate. Then in comes this fresh-faced reporter to fawn all over me and reawaken my passion, to tell me I’m being cheated by my manager and to provide endless emotional support for me. She’ll just kiss me in the Bourbon Room and I’m good to go. No mention of her struggles as a woman in a man’s field. Not even a hint of how much I supported her as she made her name as a writer. Connie will be a prop in my story instead of having her own. And you know what’s really funny about that? _

**_Tell me._ **

_ The one thing Connie’s credited for, helping me rediscover my love of music, wasn’t Connie at all. Finally getting with her was good, but I’d have been the same fuck-up if that was all that happened. _

_ I admit, this threw me for a loop. Stacee Jaxx kissing the love of his life, banging her in the bathroom, and then putting on the show of a lifetime at The Bourbon Room because of her influence is a moment enshrined in rock history. This felt like Ringo was saying The Beatles never played  _ The Ed Sullivan Show.

**_I’m sorry. What?_ **

_ Oh, yeah. Everyone thinks it’s Connie because of that interview I gave, where I said June 18th, 1987*** was the day I found rock again, which is our anniversary. But it wasn’t my Connie. She helped me find myself, not the music. _

**_Then what did?_ **

_ That was the first time Von Colt played “Don’t Stop Believing”. It knocked me on my ass. I actually stopped fucking Connie just to listen. I hadn’t felt that kind of passion for life in years, and suddenly, I was reminded of what I was missing. That’s why I bought their contract and had Von Colt as our opening act the following tour. Sure, I wanted to support young artists, and we’ve become friends, but I needed them around while I was putting my music back together, to remind me what was possible. _

**_Any final words for our readers?_ **

_ Don’t go looking for a Penny Lane. That’s a pretty dream, but it will never happen. Instead, find a Constance Sack, someone who won’t make you feel like your best self, but will make you want to become it. _

  
  


_ *While Crowe referred to her as Constance Jaxx, she never changed her name and remained Constance Sack _

_ ** The feature mentioned, “Arsenal and Von Colt” profiled both acts on their shared tour, exploring the parallels between an up-and-coming act and established hitmakers. Ms. Sack became the first woman to write a Pulizter winning story while pregnant, and the first to accept her award while in labor.  _

_ ***At the request of Mr. Jaxx, we’re going to remind the audience that he and his wife have been an item for thirteen years, married for ten, have three children, and he adores Constance Sack. He’s not going to cheat on her, so quit asking. _


End file.
